I want to make homemade artisanal bread. And paella. And something, anything, with caramelized onions. I want to savor culinary triumphs and laugh uproariously at culinary failures. But I can’t. Or don’t. What has happened?
I’m exhausted. It’s not summer vacation, or depression, or even having a baby who still gets up to eat twice a night. It’s parvovirus, and I feel like it’s slowly sucking the life out of my life.
In kids, parvovirus manifests as Fifth’s Disease, which is an ominous name of an innocuous childhood illness. But in the few adults who contract it as parvovirus (those of us unlucky enough to escape it in childhood), it can be much more debilitating and it can linger. And linger. For up to six months.
My symptoms? Pseudo-arthritis, pseudo-Chronic Fatigue, with daily migraines as the proverbial cherry on top. How am I coping? Ben’s picking up so much of my slack it’s ridiculous... thank goodness he’s on summer vacation. He’s doing most of the night feedings—I make the bottles and fling myself back into bed.
The answer for all of this? Time. I’m having more blood work this week to look for possible short-term treatment ideas. For now we just wait. I’m trying so hard to grin and bear it, to find the joys and energy in every day where I can. I still laugh every day, love every day, cook every day. But I haven’t found time for much else extra. So I have let my blog languish. What was such a tremendous source of motivation and energy for me has become a guilt-inducing drain. I tell myself I’m merely on summer hiatus, much like my beloved Liz Lemon. But I’m fooling myself.
I’m just too tired to brag to myself about my culinary exploits. And I have made some marvelous things... soba salad with soy-wasabi vinaigrette with soy-marinated chicken thighs, gorgeous homemade baby food like organic nectarines and butternut squash, Nestle Tollhouse cookies vastly improved with Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips.
I’m hoping that somehow, by purging some of this self-inflicted guilt (is there any other kind?) that I can get back to doing what I loved—experimenting and laughing with my family in my kitchen, sampling new flavors and recording my adventures for posterity. Oh and a book deal. I’d love a book deal.
Here’s wishing the parvo good riddance. I’m on to bigger and better things.
Anyone have a paella pan they’re looking to unload?
I bought myself a rolling pin today! Sophia and I stopped at Brown’s Shoe Fit in downtown Longmont to buy her some new tennis shoes and decided to bop across the street to check out the new local cooking shop, Cayenne Kitchen. I’m not a big impulse shopper (frankly, I’m not a shopper at all), but we’d found a fabulous new pair of sneakers for Sophia on sale for $15 (with laces... soooo exciting!), so I was feeling lucky. I thought I might run across a paella pan, which I’m sure I don’t need to make paella, but they’re so coppery and gorgeous.